The Azelia Ley Museum ‘Voices of the Women’Historical Society of Cockburn

The Azelia Ley Museum ‘Voices of the Women’

On Mother's Day, the Museum’s Vintage Vehicle & Market Garden Machinery Day and Patchwork in the Park launches the new display in the Wagonhouse featuring local schools' histories and early migrant domestic machinery.

In the early years of WA’s colonisation, opportunities for women to express their voice were few and far between. Keeping up appearances was important. Women wore elaborate gowns from their homelands, imported delicate materials for their wedding gowns and put energies into expressing their voices in their treatment of their furnishings, homecrafts and embroidery. This continued until women took a stronger role during the war years.

The Museum now displays recently conserved 1800s costumes, an early 1900s wedding dress and a 1942 Red Cross cloth, embroidered with famous signatures to raise money during WWII.

In the Freedom of Speech project at the Museum’s recently refurbished outbuildings, the Society are linking with the local Dalmatinac Club to record and translate tales told by Italian post war migrant women.

Bring a picnic!

The Museum opens Sundays (and Mon-Wed for group tours by appointment). Enquiries to museum@cockburn.wa.gov.au or 08 9418 6648.

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